William. Mister Macaw.Alora knew those names, one invoking much more pleasant feelings than the other. Her brow furrowed as she tried to rein in every memory that bombarded her brain.Mister Macaw protested my joining Opulence?
“Alora.”
“Yes?” She scrunched her eyes closed.
“I will save you from this.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know what he’s done.”
“I think I do,” he said, and above the mask, his eyes turned pained. The darkness in them had gone.
She frowned over it, tracking his fingers as they reached behind his head. He tossed the mask to the floor, which Alora hardly noticed as she stared instead at his mouth. “You do?” she said, full of disbelief. Merridon had led her to believe only the pair of them knew what had been done. “How?”
“The topiary,” he said.
Oh god.His voice waseverything.Deep still, and rough, but no longer rasping. She yearned to drink it in.
He continued like she wasn’t becoming undone before him. “That was my first concern. And when I’d been informed you’d arrived, I had planned to intercept you, to remind you of your promise in not entering into another contract. To make sure you were all right. But I was detained over business. An Urchin, missing.”
“And then?”
“I confronted management, who didn’t seem keen to give me any information. I said some things she will no doubt report me for, but it hardly matters; she isn’t so above me as she thinks. After, I found an employee waiting to act as escort for the new performer, he said. I told him I was to take his place.”
“You eavesdropped?”
“He was already making his final demands, and I knew I’d come too late. That you were bespelled. In that moment, I’ll admit, I went almost blind with rage. But my bursting in would have done nothing for either of us.”
“So you waited.”
“I waited. Did I do the wrong thing?”
Alora thought over his question. At what chain of events would have begun had Marshall Merridon’s own son, the captain of his dreadful Urchins, betrayed him so openly. Her instincts told her she would have survived it, bound in her head as she was now, but Bash would not. Merridon didn’t appear to tolerate liabilities, no matter how close they were to him. After that, she really would have been all alone. Alora shook her head.
“No, I don’t think you did.”
Except her words didn’t seem to relieve whatever bothered him. “There is something else,” he began, swallowing. “Something I want to admit to you, but I know you’ll hate me for it. God knows I hate myself.” Alora stiffened, preparing herself for another betrayal. Bash noticed, and his hand came forwardto cup her face. “I only wish you would remember me first. Remember everything that happened before.”
A new sensation fell upon her suddenly at his earnest request. Like a clearing of clouds or dawn over night. Or maybe it was better described as a passageway, opening straight into her mind. Bash’s wish was his and not her own and he’d spoken it to her to fulfill. Hedesiredfor her to remember.
The smile that stretched her face was hopeful and luminous with triumph. “If that is what you desire,” she said.
And set her memories free.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“It wasyours.”
If Bash hadn’t blocked her, he would have been stuck like a pincushion. As it were, he gripped her wrist. The hairpins clattered onto the tile.
“Alora! Stop! What the hell has come over you?” He gripped her opposite wrist now, too, worried she’d slap him. Which she’d been about to; his anticipation was infuriating.
“Let me go!”
“That doesn’t seem a safe choice for either of us. Are you ill?”
Alora gritted her teeth. “No, you cretin. Iremember.You said Madam Feebledire is not above you? You’re right! Yourmanagementof your evil Urchins gave you power over me. Your little desire called straight into my enchantment! And thank you! Thank you for reminding me of what your true nature is. Wicked artifacts are subjective, are they? Well! I don’t think that ruby-eyed”—her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth—“thingis subjectively evil. I’d say it definitely is!” A gray cast stole intoBash’s complexion. A damning if there ever was one. She could have sobbed. “You gave it to him. How could you?”
“I’m so sorry, Alora. I’ll never quit being sorry. He’d sent me out to retrieve it months ago. An old crone was rumored to have entranced her entire family, including her great-grandchildren, into spending every minute of the day with her. Even to follow her along in death. They put up quite a fight.” He touched the scar on his eyebrow. “I’d no idea he’d ever think to use it on you. I’d no idea you were to become the performer behind Door Twenty-five. Fuck, I didn’t know all you were capable of! That you could even deliver what he wanted. I told you once before—I would never do anything to hurt you.”
